Rights and responsibilities

 

Subject: Rights and responsibilities.

Wouldn't it be nice if we weren't so critical of our lives and our surroundings. If we saw everything from the glass half full perspective rather from pondering about things which could go wrong. Our pessimism which conflicts with the optimism of youth is a slow burning coil, its smoke twists and turns and envelops us as we become less able to change events, even if we wanted to. It's not that we become conflicted with the events around, they seem to have less and less relevance to ourselves, it's the world just outside the window, sufficiently remote but not quite inconsequential, it's a place we no longer feel part of. 

The pandemic has quietened everyone down of course, the pubs are shut along with the restaurants, the cinema and live theatre closed with doubts about their reopening. Who would have thought in February that so much would change and we would all be asked to stay at home and not to go into work. The streets and the parks fell silent like an apocalypse movie or that chilling 1950s film "On the Beach" with its scenes of cities in the Northern Hemisphere empty of people after a nuclear war. Our streets were silent for a while, motor cars parked up, the occasional brave soul out walking the dog but everything else wrapped like discarded presents, unopened and unused.

Slowly like a fragile chrysalis we have started to emerge and flutter around, returning to work and play, but aware of the virus we are uncomfortable with each other. Our  interaction now from behind a mask as we move through a phalanx of hand sanitisers, scrutineers and distancing screens. The woman on the till in the supermarket resembles a virologist at work in the lab rather than the chirpy communicator of old.

People of advancing age like me have been the most effected, catching the virus can be a death sentence and a pretty ugly one at that and so we have become the walk on part in the theatre waiting our cue just off stage left, part of, yet not part of the show. 

The holidays we planned for in retirement and the time we now have on our hands hangs heavy as we contemplate the passing year. No showboating with an 'equity release', no sudden spur of the moment booking to explore South America or the complexities of Asia, even relatives in South Africa or Australia are out of bounds, just imagine the cruel irony of a big win on the national lottery. The algorithms though are active with at least one funeral policy a day popping up in my email box. 

Strolling along the promenade with arthritic ankle joints because the family feel it's good for you, shows how wide the gap has grown between your reality and theirs. The memories of when "it was good for you" must never be allowed to go away but perhaps the memory can now best be enjoyed from a sedentary position.  

The strain of living under a cloud shows on everyone's face, the frustration of not participating or earning a living, not being able to visit friends and do things is equally felt by the old and the young. The young believe its their impervious right to live and have fun but equally, the old are frustrated by what they see as the plain stupidity of young people crowding onto the beaches in their thousands as soon as the restrictions were  lifted. The young must surely understand  how a virus is transmitted but this understanding is trashed by the hedonistic compulsion 'to do what I want to do and to hell with the consequences for others'. 

But all is not darkness there are many things we learn about ourselves and others as we come face to face, sometimes for the first time with not being able to do what we want to do. This assumption which was born amongst the 'common man or woman' after the Second World War that they could do virtually anything they wished so long as they wanted it sufficiently has lead to a dreamy existence, a place were people move around in a fog of their own making unrelated to reality. In the jingoism of a 'can do' society which often ignores the fact that my actions might endanger others or that co-responsibility is the highpoint of a civilised society, we will have to learn once again that rights are a qualified thing and must be tempered with a large dollop of responsibility.